The Office of Library Services in the Central Administration of the State
University of New York (SUNY) has, since 1975, been developing a library
management information system based on the analysis of library and other
bibliographic and academic data which are available in machine readable
form. Although primarily designed for the SUNY libraries, the processes
are applicable in other academic libraries because of the general availability
of the data used in the system. The task has changed over the years as
new ideas and opportunities were realized, as new appreciations of the
obtained results were attained, and as the technical environment has
evolved. Nonetheless, the fundamental structure of the system design has
not changed since the first ideas in 1974.
This is an interim report. Progress has been agonizingly slow for two
reasons. First, the difficulty of obtaining support and resources has been a
real hindrance; the work has been squeezed into overcrowded schedules
and ever-straitening budgets. Second, many of the machine-readable data
which one confidently felt would be available in the late 1970s or very early
1980s are still not available. Some years, at least, will pass before the work
can be completed as we see it now. Who knows what new ideas and
opportunities will emerge as new results become available? Nonetheless,
enough has been achieved to justify this report.

Issue Date:

1982

Publisher:

Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Citation Info:

In F.W. Lancaster, ed. 1982. Library automation as a source of management information: Papers presented at the 1982 Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing. Urbana, Il: Graduate School of Library and Information Science: 164-196.